Multiculturalism gave us Jihad

Published on November 19, 2010

In his review of Kenan Malik's From Fatwa to Jihad:  The Rushdie Affair and Its Aftermath, Dan Margolis argues that tolerance for other faiths and cultures -- multiculturalism -- has prevented liberals from successfully working for or even believing in absolute human rights.  Posted at Guernica: Of course, most Muslims are not terrorists, so the question arises: Who becomes a terrorist and why? We know that most of these people have been well off, at least middle class, and well educated. According to Malik, the separation foisted by multiculturalism provided fertile ground for identity politics, mixed with a culture of grievance, to grow into jihadist terror. Young people in the “Muslim community,” instead of fighting racism—how could one fight against inequality when the whole idea of a cohesive society was out the window?—found themselves fighting against their parents’ version of Islam; in short, the rebelled by becoming more pious, more “Islamic” than anyone else.

In his review of Kenan Malik’s From Fatwa to Jihad:  The Rushdie Affair and Its Aftermath, Dan Margolis argues that tolerance for other faiths and cultures — multiculturalism — has prevented liberals from successfully working for or even believing in absolute human rights.  Posted at Guernica:

Of course, most Muslims are not terrorists, so the question arises: Who becomes a terrorist and why? We know that most of these people have been well off, at least middle class, and well educated. According to Malik, the separation foisted by multiculturalism provided fertile ground for identity politics, mixed with a culture of grievance, to grow into jihadist terror. Young people in the “Muslim community,” instead of fighting racism—how could one fight against inequality when the whole idea of a cohesive society was out the window?—found themselves fighting against their parents’ version of Islam; in short, the rebelled by becoming more pious, more “Islamic” than anyone else.

Explore 21 years and 4,058 articles of

The Revealer